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Tuesday, October 19, 2010

A Meeting of Heroes

Since only 2 players could make it to the D&D session, I had the party sitting around and Kron (owner of the Thunderheart Incorporated adventuring company) started telling the story of how he first met Bojangles. It took place in a whorehouse called The Wooden Wench (where the wine is cheap and the women are cheaper) in the very center of Dock Ward in Waterdeep.

Normally Kron is just an NPC but I had Wayne play both Kron and Bojangles since Bojangles wasn't actually in the fight until half way through the very last battle. Normally I wouldn't do this to a player, but Wayne is my go-to player when we have missing people and is just there to have fun no matter what happens.

Here is the setup I emailed them a few days before...

Mariz has worked with Kron for quite some time but Bojangles' first meeting was one surrounded in filth and mysteries.

Dock Ward is Waterdeep's oldest and most colorful ward. The harbor is very much a working place, full of sweating, cursing dockworkers and sailors loading and unloading vessels. Carts grown hastily between warehouses all over the southern half of the city and Dock Ward, carrying goods to and from the ships. Dock Ward is also notorious as a lawless, brawling place of drunks, smugglers, and fell magic.

Notable landmarks of Dock Ward include Cookhouse Hall, Shippers' Hall, and the Full Sails tavern, headquarters of the Most Diligent League of Sail-Makers & Cordwainers. One of the less notable establishments of Dock Ward is The Wooden Wench, existing in the very center of the ward, drawing a more nefarious crowd. Many pleasures are avilable at The Wooden Wench but the servicers aren't the cleanliest.

Kron Thunderheart gt a tip there was something strange happening at The Wooden Wench and took Mariz into Dock Ward to check things out. Finding the brothel was easy enough and the stench was nearly overwhelming when they entered...

Here is a picture of the full map, the brothel has 2 stories with a single wooden staircase connecting them.

This was the bottom floor. Mariz can be seen here talking to the owner of the establishment. He and Kron decided to split up but had a code-word to let the other know if they were in trouble. They would yell “SUBMARINE!” and the other would come running from wherever they were in this “inn of sin”.

Once the party busted through the door to the main suite where BoJangles’ soul was being leeched, I turned off Radio Rivendell and kicked on the iPod.

They party was forced out of the room by the succubus, so they decided to try to get help from the people “busy” in the semi-private room. They opened the door to find the patrons and workers had been turned into undead creatures!

They defeated the undead and found a magical jeweled dagger that would one-shot the succubus, but sadly, they didn’t know that was its purpose (read: failed their arcane check) and never used it. Once they got through to the master suite, the succubus had Bojangles knocked out in a ritual circle and had begun to leech his soul. They attacked and she quickly kissed Kron, putting him under her spell. He was able to get Bojangles out of the summoning circle though, and right in time, as she “dominated” Mariz and controlled his next turn…meaning if Kron hadn’t gotten Bojangles out of the circle, she would have had control of all 3 of them and eaten very well that night. Of course, breaking the 4th wall, one of the players mentioned “we can’t die, we’re sitting in the guild hall telling this story!”

At one point my wife (who does not play D&D with us) came out of the bedroom to see how the game was going; she had no idea we were playing in a whorehouse that night. She was looking at the table with a puzzled look on her face and one of the players pointed saying “Here is a man, holding a pig, standing on a bed, in a whorehouse.” She looked at him, then looked at me, and looked at the other player (who was laughing uncontrollably at this point), and then looked back at me. I said “Well, you see…we’re…” and she cut me off with a wave of her hand and said “Uhnt! I don’t want to know,” and she walked away laughing. It had to of been the highlight of the night.